A week after we broke the story about GM’s serial shilling, the media writes, GM answers, but the blogosphere looks the other way. Over the years, more than 3,000 anonymous comments were left on Thetruthaboutcars.com from what looked like GM computers. When I started researching the story half a year ago, PR professionals and seasoned experts of the social media business assured me that I was onto “the holy grail” of the business. They predicted that the story would trigger a fire storm. They were right and wrong. The story was picked up by Drudge and Instapundit, both good for an avalanche of attention. The story was discussed on Edmunds. As far as the auto blogosphere goes, the story does not exist. Instead of being righteously outraged, the blogosphere is embarrassed, and it sheepishly looks the other way. [Continue Reading]

In my six month research into the undercover trolling brigade that used GM computers to leave thousands of comments on Thetruthaboutcars.com, the website both Ed Niedermeyer and I used to run, I talked to a few social media experts that worked for large corporations. Their reaction was universal: They were appalled by the amateurish approach. “But when you are bankrupt, you probably have to do DIY cheating,” quipped an industry executive who had survived carmageddon without government oversight. In a future article, we will cover how the pros cover their tracks. Today, we write why they usually don’t have to, because the risk of public pilloring is nearly nonexistent. [Continue Reading]

In February 2009, when GM’s bankruptcy went into its terminal phase, someone with access to GM’s computer network developed an odd fascination with bicycle racing, and with the life of former bicycle racer and TTAC contributor Jack Baruth. Baruth is currently Editor in Chief of TTAC. At the time, TTAC looked unfavorably on the bailout. The person with the GM computer started to make unfavorable edits to Jack’s Wikipedia page. [Continue Reading]

When I started writing for Thetruthaboutcars.com in 2008, I had access to an automated statistic that told us from which ISP our readers dialed-in. According to the stats, surprisingly many people accessed TTAC from their computer at General Motors. On the list, GM ranked right with AT&T and other biggies. TTAC founder Robert Farago, who was on some kind of a GM crusade, was proud that TTAC was so closely read at GM. GM did not stop at reading though. Some of TTAC’s most prolific commenters were and still are working for GM. Thousands of comments left at TTAC originated at General Motors, and from the same IP numbers as used by GM’s PR department. [Continue Reading]